i don't know why i'm always drawn to seemingly "off" personalities, but they always fascinate me. i hope it's not because i, too, am "off." well, hell. if i'm off... at least it could be a turn on for someone like me with the same fascination in some way.

for the last two weeks in my writing class, there's been a cartoonish drawing on one of the chalkboards (see my rendition of exhibit A) of a mustachioed man (who oddly looks like a well-kempt einstein) smoking a cigarette with a speech bubble coming out of his mouth saying, "Make me young!" well, tonight out of nowhere, this one classmate of mine who i also had in class last semester, entered the room and--without provocation--went up to the chalkboard and erased the "make me young" speech bubble. i had only seen him do this from the corner of my eye, so i had to turn to my other classmate and ask her what he just erased:

"what did it say?" i asked.

"it just said, 'make me young.'"

i immediately dropped my head down and started laughing. what was the motivation for this?! when he erased it, i remember hearing a "tsk!" of disgust, as if he had just "had enough." enough of what? i started to wonder what electrical connections were being made in his brain. what did those words trigger in him? coming from him, his behavior tonight struck me as a continuation of other idiosyncratic behavior i had seen before. last semester, whenever he would present his story ideas, he was always a bit too prematurely belligerent. one could just be asking him for the time and he would scoff at you like you were some scrub trying to mooch off his leftovers or the last person to insist on squeezing into an overstuffed elevator. i found it such a treat to watch him present. it was like watching a time bomb.

then i started worrying.

as class progressed, another classmate went before everyone to present his story idea. simply put, it was about a priest who's brother and nephew are killed in a hit and run accident. this forces the priest to doubt his faith, and in doing so, he gives bad advice during confessionals. i chuckled when i heard his quick synopsis. however, when he finished telling the entire story--a story that ends with two of the priest's parishioners involved in a murder-suicide where one guy has half his brain blown off--i thought, "what the hell was wrong with me? was i the only one who initially thought this was going to be a comedy? what the hell was firing in my brain? but, maybe... that's just it... there's comedy in everything... even in the most tragic or the most banal situation.

ha ha ha...

Labels: crazy

but the verdict is out. i prefer frank mill's version of "music box dancer" much better than liberace's. i don't care for the sped up tempo of liberace's version. it doesn't throw me back 25 years into childish giddiness like the former's version.

that song used to drive me crazy when i was little.

well... i'm still crazy. thanks, frank.

Labels: crazy

cyberspace is already a strange place to receive messages from strangers who are alive, but this service makes it creepier to receive them from loved ones who have passed on. i think when it's time for the curtains to finally go down on my show, i'd rather bow out and leave without having to torment my loved ones with some spam mail.

Labels: crazy

reality check

the other day i was sitting at a traffic light on the corner of 1st and grand in downtown LA--just right in front of the Walt Disney Center, the new, silver wonder of the world created by frank gehry. across the intersection in opposing traffic was a black mercedes benz. i saw the driver, this white guy, waving his hand out the driver's side window. for a split second i thought of waving back, thinking it was someone i knew. then, i realized, "who the hell do i know with a mercedes benz... let alone a white guy?" the answer? no one.

Labels: crazy